Fall 2016 – Week 2 Class Notes

We had a great time in class this week! Everyone was attentive, cooperative, and kept going when technology didn’t work perfectly. We have had a few issues with the Wifi at the location where we are holding class. I am looking to fix it, but a big thank-you to the students for being patient when there are a few glitches during class!

I forgot to mention this, but this Saturday is the Tulsa Maker Faire at Expo Square. I will have a booth there – so come by, see what is going on, and drop by the booth and say “hi”!

Programming

This week we looked a bit more into how computers communicate over the network. You don’t have to do the process on pages 29-30, as that is what we did in class (though you should read those pages), and it is sometimes hard to get that done on your home computers. You may also skip #4 on “Apply What You Have Learned” on Chapter 3.

Starting on Chapter 4, there are “Practice Questions”. These will help you out if you do them, but I am not considering Practice Questions or Activities part of the required homework. I am only checking for the “Apply” section at the end. They will definitely help your understanding if you do them (and, if you get stuck on “Apply”, you should go back and do them), but I am not checking for them.

The Apply section on chapter 4 depends on you having a text editor. On Windows you can use Notepad and on the Mac you can use TextEdit, though TextEdit sometimes tries to be more than a text editor and may or may not work. You might also try to install Adobe Brackets (it is free at brackets.io) for your text editor. You will use a text editor for the rest of the class, however, the exercises in this chapter are very setup-dependent, so there may be some issues. Email me if you have issues and we can work them out, and most importantly I just want you to try them out.

Next week we will not be on computers, but will be doing a hands-on computer simulation (where you are the computer).

Electronics

We did our first circuit this week – yay! I put breadboards in the boxes, but we won’t learn to use them until next week, though many students who took the summer class were already familiar with them.

We covered Ohm’s law in class, which will be chapter 4 in your book. It is a short chapter, but very important. The homework in this chapter is foundational for the rest of the class.

Calculus

The reading assignment for Calculus is to cover chapter 3, 4, and 5. Since chapter 4 is non-existent, you have the assignment of reading this article instead. Chapter 3 is the only chapter with homework. We started talking about derivatives and integrals this week – next week we will talk about them a little more in-depth.